Vending machines have been used for many years to dispense a variety of different products, as evidenced by any one or all of the patents to J. T. Schuller (U.S. Pat. No. 3,178,055), Donald C. Rockola et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,886,325), Charles L. Casey (U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,316,315 and 2,352,471), and Leonard A. Ficken (U.S. Pat No. 4,823,984).
Typically, a conventional vending machine includes a housing for storing the articles which are to be dispensed and a conventional dispensing mechanism which can be accessed through conventional coin/token/card/paper money acceptors. Such vending machines can be filled through either a front or a rear access door and the dispensed articles are normally dispensed through a front dispensing guide and/or dispensing opening. Usually, the products or articles can be containers or soft drinks or the like, food products, candy bars, snack foods, or specific products associated with specific activities which occur at the dispensing area, such as vending machines for dispensing automobile protectant, such as Armor All.RTM., towels, glass cleaner, and similar products at vehicle car washes. No matter the specific type of vending machine involved or its area of location, one major problem is vandalism and theft. It is not uncommon for vending machines to be left unattended and thus they are subject to theft and/or damage. Even if vandals do not successfully steal the products/articles and/or money from within a vending machine, the unsuccessful theft is emotionally disconcerting to a thief and his/her unsuccessful effort at theft turns into malicious assaults upon the associated vending machine. Vending machines have been beaten with sledge hammers, torn with crow bars, axed, tipped over, dragged for miles and discarded, etc., all resulting in loss of time, money and effort to the vendor.
A variety of vending machine securing cages/systems are known, such as the vending machine security cage of U.S. Pat. No. 4,418,551 and the vending machine security system of U.S. Pat. No. 5,108,166, and the numerous patents cited in the first column of the latter patent. More pertinent to the present invention is the vending machine of U.S. Pat. No. 5,372,416 which includes a vending machine whose product display/storage area is conventionally closed by a door, but the latter is covered by an impact panel in the form of a separate translucent window which is internally mounted to the door frame adjacent the viewing area. The transparent panel is a sheet of Lexon.RTM. which is essentially indestructible and is designed to prevent access to the dispensable product/articles through the viewing area of the dispensing machine. Though this vandal-proof door generally prevents access to the vending machine interior and the products therein through the viewing area, the protection afforded to the viewing area has no consequence insofar as the overall vending machine integrity is concerned. Thus, a thief might choose not to attempt to break the impact panel but instead "jimmy" the access door or, failing in the latter, allow frustration to dictate subsequent vending machine destruction/damage in the manner earlier described.